Amnesia
by The Further
Summary: Set during the three years that Kagome had left after they destroyed the Jewel. First one-shot.


_I thought about our last kiss._

_How it felt, the way you tasted._

A flash of bright light and he was through and right beside her, just as he promised. He could see the fresh tear tracks running down her pale cheeks by which were not drying in this desolate space empty of any life or winds. He could clearly read the terrified expression that had been etched into her features as if they had been chiseled into stone and yet, as her glittering brown eyes recognized him, her face broke out into surprise and her lips whispered his name as if a single word could cause the apparent mirage to disappear. He was no mere illusion though and he pressed the hand not occupied by a sword on the middle of her back, bringing her flush to his chest and embracing her warmly while she, in turn, wrapped her slim arms around his waist and squeezed.

They both seemed to pull back at the same time, registering each other's familiar gazes before closing their eyes, their softened lips reaching toward the person their heart cried out for.

A branch high in the thousand year old tree known as Goshinboku quaked as a young man clad in a matching red hoari and hakama shot upward, his spine rigid as memories of a dream of a time long past clung like a hazy mist to his sobering mind. He swung his head east, to the rising sun, and then west before ducking his head down and rubbing his sweating forehead with a single clawed hand, his silver mane of hair draping across his broad shoulders.

_I wish that I could wake up with Amnesia._

This young dog-eared man leaned back against the Goshinboku, his hands snaking their way into the sleeves of his hoari as his face fell into a now familiar depressed expression, his head falling back as his golden gaze shifted among the canopy of branches, the bright light of morning illuminating the sky and chasing away the darker patches of blue that still dared to linger. His mind always lingered on that face in his dream, a face that had begun to grow hazy as the days went by as if he was trying to see through a dense fog in the middle of Fall. The muscle that pumped blood, to all corners of his body constricted in his chest, seeming to send out pools of sorrow throughout his veins as if he hadn't already thought about her every day for the past three years.

_And forget about the stupid little things._

_Like the way it felt to fall asleep next to you._

_And the memories I never can escape._

He had gotten used to the agony of having the other half of himself five hundred years in the future, the waves of sorrow that permeated his entire being, and the loneliness he had begun to felt without her next to him. Memories of her smiling pink lips and sparkling eyes almost gave him a crook at the side of his lips until he remembers moments later that she was not here, nor was she ever coming back, yet sometimes he couldn't help but remember how happy it made him to even sleep by her feet and make sure she was safe and how he always loved to argue and tease her.

_Are you somewhere feeling lonely?_

_If what we had was real, how could you be fine?_

There it was again, that constriction beneath his chiseled chest that made him want to break down as his mind wondered to how she might be doing in her own world. Was she happy without him? Was she safe and did she find somebody else? All these thoughts crossed his mind and he soon began to wonder if she really did feel the same about him, and then a vivid memory of her lips against his brought him out of that particular stupor and he forced a grin across his face as his head fell forward, his thick unruly bangs shadowing his eyes.

_I admit I feel alone and all my friends keep asking why I'm not around._

_It hurts to know you're happy._

_It hurts that you've moved on._

'As long as she's safe and alive. That's all that matters.' That same thought is the only one that seems to be positive in this sea of sorrow that he seemed to find himself adrift on. Whether or not he actually believed what he preached had yet to be seen as the sudden image of another man holding her made his blood boil, his thick toughened nails digging into the bark of the branch he had roosted himself on.

_It's hard to hear your name when I haven't seen you in so long._

The drifting sound of voices drifting across to him and he reclined back in his seat, a look of indifference setting like hard steel to his features, as if his thoughts were not occupied by the woman they were chattering about. The words 'three years', 'lonely', and 'Kagome' flitted across the soft inner fur of his canine ears and his steel mask faltered for a split second before resuming it's indifference. He didn't need to look below his branch to know the monk, taijiya, and their three brats had arrived and were now awaiting for him to join them. He pretended not to notice until the taijiya called up to him in an overly friendly voice that didn't do well to cover her pity.

"Please come down, Inuyasha! We made breakfast!" Breakfast. A roasted rabbit tasted better than her cooking as she was a warrior, not a farmer. Yet despite that her skills in her culinary arts had inclined over the years.

"Tch, not now, Sango." Was his clipped reply as he let his arms swing on either side of his think perch, doing his best to play off that he was still his usual grumpy self.

"Ah, company is the best medicine for loneliness, Inuyasha!" The monk, if you could call him that, called back up. Bah, he'd still grab other women's asses other than his wife's despite having children with her.

"Lonely? I don't _get_ lonely, you lecherous monk." He could almost feel the soft 'tsk, tsk' coming from said monk until the twins began to tug on his rattail and he became distracted.

"Come down whenever you're ready, Inuyasha." Sango called up quietly to him as she shifted the sleeping babe resting against her back, not willing to argue with him as she herded her family back through the forest. Silence consumed him once more and he cracked a single one of his eyes open to check that they had really gone. The clearing had become empty and he was glad that Sango had understood his desire for peace.

_The dreams you left behind, you didn't need them._

_Like every single wish we ever made._

He hadn't had the mind to think about it before, but now with the familiar sense of young children still in the air he mind wandered to 'what if's'. Had she stayed would she have stayed true to her word and stuck to his side? Would she have wanted children? Tiny hanyou children that would have had his dog ears and his sharp claws? Would she have wanted to bring more like him into the world when there was no doubt they would be treated badly? Ah, to imagine the look on her face if she had a child of her own to coo over and furry ears to fawn over. It was not until his stomach grumbled at him did he realize the sun had risen well above the horizon and that he had fallen into his own little world. He released a sigh that came from deep within his muscled chest and swung his legs over the side of the thick branch, pushing off with his rough calloused hands that still remembered the feel of her soft thighs. As he fell toward the earth the feelings of weightlessness that greeted him somewhat comforted him as if it felt his loneliness through his soul until he landed gracefully on his bare feet and headed down the same familiar path he had taken three times a day since the hour she disappeared with the Shikon Jewel. The same Jewel he sometimes wished would reappear if only it would return his other half to him and bring whole the piece of her that lingered within him.

Then he remembered all they had gone through together to purge this land of the greatest evil it had ever known, all they and so many others had suffered through. Would she return to this era knowing she would be bringing back the cursed Shikon Jewel if it meant returning to his side?

He though not. And so all he could do was hope that she would one day return to his side with only light accompanying her and take away this pain and loneliness. As his legs seemed to carry him forward he brushed past the all too familiar trees and bushes until he broke out into a brightly lit clearing, an ancient wooden well sitting in the center with the morning light kissing it's cracked boards. For a second as the morning light blinded him, his eyes adjusted from the darkness of the forest, he swore he could see the bright white and green fabric of her familiar uniform gleaming from the light of the sun. She swung her head towards him, her dark locks of hair falling slowly into place beside her hazy face.

A pair of starlings by the well shot past her nonexistent features. He blinked. She was nowhere to be seen nor did her scent linger in the clearing any longer. His heart had grew excited as he watched the mirage but now it had slowed to a rhythmic pound, every beat constricting his muscles and threatening to choke him.

Without another thought toward another illusion of her he approached the rotten ancient well and crouched beside it's hollowed walls, his lean arms coming to rest on one side of the structure as his increasingly despondent features dropped any trace of his scowl and he peered down into it. It was dry and it's walls were layered with stones and thick vines with a light layer of soft dirt to cover it's bottom. He awaited the familiar hum of the energy and the faint blue light to bring her five hundred years into the past, to bring her to him.

Nothing.

_I'm not fine at all._

* * *

5 Seconds of Summer - Amnesia.

I'm sorry, I tried. :I


End file.
